I mean, I’m generally interested in using them as a means to explore humanity. Given the power to shape life and bring fantasy to reality, mankind intentionally makes an unintelligent and defenseless gerbil/rat/badger shaped like a horse then uses them asa hobby, parasitic economic niche, or just torments the things while the world burns because basically nothing significantly changes much when humans become Prometheus since its just easier to be Zeus and not give a shit. Then loses the technology that was used to make it and just never really rediscovers it. Meanwhile Fluffies exhibit similar toxic and evil behaviors as humans, just at a “toy” scale like a fucked up version of Rugrats. I mean, if you think about it a story centered around a Hellgremlin os just Walking Dead by way of Smurfs, and a story where some Abuser genius playboy mad scientist exterminates a Herd via power tools and gaslighting is just Smurf Walking Dead except the season villain is a Greek god.
Hell, its even darker when you consider the earlier canon of Fluffy limbs being reattachable or biogel being a thing, neither of which exists for humans. Robot legs for Pillow Fluffies, while wheelchairs are still a thing for folks. Half the population lights them on fire for fun, and still medical advances can basically restore any damage while mankind is living the exact same as it is in real life. No actual work on rediscovering that lost technogy and making a better human, or a perfect food animal, or an actual non-shit magic-like talking friend for children like organic I Sing The Body Electric, just hyper capitalism in a modern first world wasteland.
Also, Enfie seems just exclusively used to refer to rape. I suppose technically it just means rough or quick, as opposed to presumably slow rape that is Bad Special Huggies, but due to reproducing through sexual violence being common to animals I’d almost say Hellgremlin is when they take their time because its a conscious choice rather than the animal portion of the brain of a badly made uplifted chimera overpowering the computer-like programming that lets it interact more on a human level in a few specific ways. The term is definitely programmed since they never have variation, there’s no story I’m aware of where a Fluffy victim is struggling for a way to describe what happened and calls it something like “sowwy nunu stickies” or “icky bad bad feews”.
Its definitely less interesting to make them incapable of being anything more than an innocent cartoon character in a world they shouldn’t exist in, to make them all just stupid weak humans in chibi horse bodies, or make them all miniature Karens and Incels. Whether by giving them free will, unstable genetics and mutations that make some more alive than others, or just saying different breeds are more sapient and/or prone to antisocial behavior, the concept is improved by having a broader range of options in the same universe. One bad seed can do enough damage without making every Fluffy a tiny Mongol warlord without cause, but making them completely innocent means that the only variable for conflict and drama in different stories is what they can hurt themselves with, and otherwise the plot is entirely on the human. I mean, part of the gag of their innocence is being given four blocks then being unable to stack more than two with ease, the third with great effort before the fourth topples it and they start again, and just doing that almost all day, every day aside from times they get hungry or horny.
But ultimately the issue is that they’re a completely designed creature both mentally and physically, and most writing doesn’t give them any kind of shared culture to justify anything in either direction. Any kind of violence, bad behavior, or language that pops up frequently and in the same way just has to have been there on purpose, some kind of sabotage or hidden feature/gag from a designer, a glitch, or the natural instincts of ancestor animals coming out. If they all understand what rape is, have a word for it, and even have a phrase declaring they are not meant to be used that way, then someone put it in them rather than just making them unable to do it. Otherwise you’d have to do away with the ability to remove a Foal from its mother, raise it on a milkbag, then throw it in the dollar bin and somehow have the same world understanding and vocabulary as any other Fluffy.
Possibly a lot of behavior can be called a quick fix that the public was never meant to see, like how the unreachable parts of World Of Warcraft maps via invisible walls or conveniently placed rocks had notes spelled out in the terrain from one designer to another about future plans for the area or problems they were having. “Nu am mawe” just being one lab bioengineer making a note to another to make males never see each other as partners.
But when it comes right down to it, the -pals is ultimately representative of the human cruelty instead of the Fluffy. If they are programmed to not see the Fluffy in the box as a Fluffy then they remain innocent, blissfully unaware because their brain is not allowed to see it as a being who is suffering, let alone another Fluffy. That Hasbio planned it from the start, even just as an idea some sick fuck who’s job leading a team came 100% from nepotism ordered them to try out and was sold as an actual product or kit after public opinion soured on artificial lifeforms, just says mankind is trash. Cruelty stemming from racism or ableism can still be considered part of programming. Not many works portray complete empathy and understanding that only circumstance makes them different from the one in the box, even the ones that have them know its a sad Fluffy have them just not understand what to do with their sadness other than go cheer themselves up or reason that if the Fluffy didn’t deserve it the human would not have said it was their purpose.
The -pal ideas are definitely strange and require decisions to be made, and explained (unless its a comic or single image) to work well. But they aren’t necessarily a default Hellgremlin thing. As I recall there is a story where a randy male is converted into an Enfiepal just as a quick and efficient means of tending livestock that would get aggressive and harm each other without release the way an old fashioned cowboy might try to deal some blunt brain damage to a violent steer or cut a sickly one to ensure predators take it first during a drive to maximize the health of the herd without ensuring a loss for example.
I mean, you don’t exactly see me using the idea much. There has to be a logic to it, since it immediately says what your setting is and isn’t in so many ways.